Notes From The Tiger’s Cave

What “Washizu Mahjong” Can Teach Us About Transparency On The Internet…

The Japanese manga comic series Akagi follows the exploits of its eponymous hero at the Japanese mahjong table… 

 In one game, called Washizu Mahjong, Akagi has to stake his blood while playing with a Japanese mahjong set in which three quarters of the tiles are made of glass.Playing with transparent mahjong tiles means that the players can follow each other’s moves and see how close they are to winning.

This obviously affects the way the players play the game and interact with each other. In mahjong you can complete your hand either by collecting the winning tile yourself, or by claiming it off another player when he throws it away. But in a game where you can see three quarters of the tiles you are far less likely to throw a tile that somebody needs, or to go out on a tile that somebody throws…

In short, you have to try to win on your own, while keeping a close eye on the opposition. You become more aware of how the others play the game, and more self-reliant in seeking to win the game with your own resources.

Why Adapting To Transparency Is The Best Internet Marketing Strategy

A similar situation exists on the Internet where the Internet marketing strategy of every single website owner is open to a large degree of scrutiny from other marketers, and where everything that one player does can be seen and imitated by another.Of course, in a few cases of utter brilliance we scratch our heads and wonder, “How the blazes did he do that?” It is as if the player had his hand stacked with a large percentage of non-transparent tiles!!

When developing a viable Internet marketing strategy, you can take advantage of the transparency of the Internet both in researching the best internet marketing strategies and in promoting your own website.

Internet Marketing Research: Don’t Be Afraid To Look Through the Glass Tiles And Read Your Opponent’s Hand!

Google is a wonderful tool in helping you to track down websites that are operating in a similar niche market to your own. What do the top sites look like? What are their Alexa rankings? What insights can you glean from them? DO NOT copy and paste their stuff to your own website, because you will be breaking copyright law - and remember, in a transparent market you will most likely be found out! All the website owner has to do is run a Google search and he or she will be on to your case…

What you can do, however, is learn from your competitor’s website and use what you found as inspiration to help you develop your own unique product.

Turn An Unavoidable Circumstance Into A Money-Spinning Virtue

Seeing as it is inevitable that your opposition will also come and check out your site, it is meet and apposite that you turn an inescapable circumstance into an undeniable virtue.

Seeking to protect your copy with copyright notices is jejune and defunct. Seeking to control your copy by insisting that it stay on your site is downright perverse and obtuse.

The way to take advantage of transparency on the Internet is to give your copy away to all and sundry!

All you have to do is either, add your own link and author info to the bottom of everything you post on your site, and INVITE visitors to copy your page to their site, complete with link and all.

Another way to do this - actually, an even better way - is to go to creativecommons.org, get yourself a Creative Commons Licence and slap it on the bottom of every single page on your site.

Then, when people copy your stuff they will take the CC licence complete with link back to your site with them. It is quite possible that people who read your article on someone else’s site will see the CC licence and take your article and put it on their site…

Also, your page will appear in the Creative Commons listings.All this equals links back to your site, which adds up to more publicity, higher search engine rankings and more traffic. And it didn’t cost you a penny!!

In an upcoming post I’ll talk about some way that you can also try to cloak your online activities… remember, the Akagi mahjong set was only 75% transparent!!.

David Hurley

Internet Marketing Strategies